International Geneva

LAURENCE VERCAMMEN Rédactrice en chef / Editor-in-chief

For newcomers, Geneva, a city ranked one of the 10 most liveable in the world, can seem a paradox: both international and impersonal at the same time. Relying on first impressions would be a mistake. Geneva is discreet and reserved, and reveals itself slowly. Cracking its secret codes requires patience.

A city of peace, located in the centre of Europe, each year it attracts, often through international organizations, citizens from around the world trying to put down their roots and adapt to their new environment, while maintaining their cultural, linguistic and religious identities.

Does Geneva offer the best conditions and environment for a successful mix?

Without imposing a unilateral point of view, Geneva respects identity and freedom of expression. Everyone can live their culture and practise their religion freely, evidence of which are the many intercultural centres and neighbourhood associations, schools and places of worship.

Geneva is not just an essential platform for peace, where many nationalities live in harmony. It still keeps many surprises for those who want to get to know it. Around each corner, or through a chance encounter, the real Geneva is waiting for you.

An interview with Director of the Geneva Welcome Centre, also known as the Centre d’Accueil Genève Internationale (CAGI)

SARAH JORDAN, SDLS, UNOG

The Geneva Welcome Centre, as its name clearly indicates, is the one-stop shop for any newcomer to Geneva – whether you are looking for somewhere to live, a network of new friends, or a club to practise your favourite sport, the staff at CAGI can point you in the right direction.

Native of Geneva, co-founder of the CAGI twenty years ago and for six years its Director, Ambassador Dunant takes his retirement this February. He talks to Sarah Jordan about the services offered by the Centre, which is at the heart of “International Geneva”.

The Centre, based at the Villa la Pastorale opposite the Hotel Intercontinental in Petit Saconnex, is a non-profit organization, founded in 1996 by the Swiss Confederation and the State of Geneva. It receives funding from around 33 associate and supporting members, which means that its services are free-of-charge for newcomers with legitimation cards irrespective of rank or nationality. In recent years the scope has widened to include other visitors such as conference delegates.

Services to newcomers
Ambassador Dunant explained the two main services provided – to facilitate installation and promote integration. “We can offer practical help through our Housing and Information Service, putting tenants in touch with estate agents and providing additional support for non-French speakers to help them better understand rental contracts and the housing regulations in Switzerland. We can also advise how to open a bank account, explain the schooling options and even more everyday challenges like the functioning of the public transport system and the purchase of bus tickets! We are all-round problem solvers!”

Once installed in your new home, you are ready for the next step – integration. To this end, the Centre has developed a “Welcome Network”, which is supported by 25 volunteers, to help you get to know Geneva and the surrounding area and interact with the international and local population.

“We have three specific products on offer”, explained Ambassador Dunant. “The first is a monthly excursion to a place of interest, accompanied by a group of our volunteers. In September last year we took about 90 people to St Cergue in the Jura mountains to see the cows come down from their summer pastures – known in French as the Désalpe – followed by lunch at the Château de Nyon. In December, we have a traditional Escalade fondue party at La Pastorale to introduce newcomers to the Geneva Fête de l’Escalade, followed by a guided tour of the old town. Last year we had approximately 650 guests and their families attending the event”.

Promoting communication
The second product is the Conversation Exchange Programme, which is open to both the international and local populations. “We have 1,000 people registered, speaking 65 different languages. We encourage people to get together once a week to converse in their native tongue with a person who wants to learn their language – for example a native Chinese speaker and a native German speaker chat together in each of the two languages for about 30 minutes. To further develop fluency, in a more convivial atmosphere, we organize cocktail parties twice a year for everyone registered in the programme, each person wearing a badge indicating the languages they speak. It certainly makes for an entertaining evening!”

Moving to Geneva

PETER REES, WHO

Relocating to any new city is both an exciting and daunting experience – full of possibilities for a new start, but also potential pitfalls and initial difficulties. I moved to Geneva from the UK just over a year ago, and below are a few things I learnt from my time settling in.

Know before you go
Find out whether it is feasible or a better option to live over the border in neighbouring France. The rent is generally cheaper with more living space (apart from Ferney-Voltaire, as demand is high), there is more choice in supermarkets and longer opening hours, and neighbourhoods are quieter, which may be more desirable for families. However, public transport is less frequent and reliable (having a car or bike is more convenient), and it may be too quiet and rural for younger professionals.

Finding accommodation and the first few days
Most people moving to Geneva sublet for the first few months, as it is quicker and involves less paperwork than obtaining a lease through a “régie” (letting agent). The best places to look are on the Intranet and notice boards at the international organizations, the Tribune de Genève newspaper, and the classified ads on glocals.com (a website for international professionals living in Switzerland) or leboncoin.fr (a classified advertising site in France). If you are planning to stay longterm (more than a year), the régie route will be better value. Each neighbourhood in Geneva has its own character, with the inner city districts of Eaux-Vives, Plainpalais and Pâquis being most popular for their easy access to the centre and the best transport links. However, suburban areas like Grand-Saconnex, Vernier and Charmilles are also well-served by bus routes and are no more than 20 minutes to the city centre or Nations.

Wherever you choose to live, scout out the nearest shops to you and memorize their opening hours. Shops in Geneva generally close around 7 p.m., which can be frustrating if you work until 6-6.30 p.m., and very little is open on Sundays. Knowing this before is certainly an easier experience than turning up at a shop that’s closed, or about to close and then getting a dirty look from the shopkeeper!

Settling in and the first few weeks
If you’re living in an apartment block in central Geneva, make sure you know the “house rules” to avoid any misunderstandings with neighbours. Noise after 10 p.m., including taking a shower, is often frowned upon, and many apartments with laundry machines in the basement operate a strict rotation system where each person has a two-hour slot per week.

Graduate’s testimonial

BEATRICE FALGA
EDITED BY OMAR BAWA

The morning before graduation, a young girl full of dreams and aspirations, looked out her bedroom window, onto the beautiful lake and the rising sun. Lost in her thoughts, she couldn’t compel the small anguished voice inside of her, asking: “What will your future look like?” Look ahead and what do you see?

Impatience and excitement, of course. But maybe nostalgia as well? What do we make of all that we leave behind? Years of growing up in an international environment, school, city, how thankful can we be for this unique experience?

Growing up in such an international place as the region of Geneva, has been uplifting and mind-opening. First of all, being exposed to a diversity of cultures I would never have thought of uncovering, from American to African and Asian, has been the starting point of an amazing journey. By getting to know others, I was also able to shape my own personality and understanding of the world, in a way I am very grateful of. Geneva is a hub of intellectual diversity and stimulation, where each and everyone learns from the other, it is the ‘Pearl of the Mountain Valleys’.

As attending an international school is part of the ‘international experience’, my eight years at the Collège du Léman (CDL), in Versoix, was an opportunity for me to open up, away from my small village in France, where there was merely one way to be and to act. I learned more languages as well, which I truly value today. After-class lessons were available to all students, for a multitude of languages, from Italian to Spanish and Arabic to Chinese (and Swedish!). We also had the chance to engage with different cultures first hand, for example during exchange programs, namely in Mexico, Monterrey, and by taking part in inter-scholar sports tournaments in Orlando, Florida, highly appreciated by the majority of students.

The advantages of an international school are also the different education systems that can be followed: the International Baccalaureate, AP, A-levels, French Baccalaureate, Swiss Maturité. A choice made difficult by the high quality of teachers. An international environment also multiplies your opportunities for the future, and possibilities to pursue higher education abroad, all over the world.

Christian Friis Bach

Christian Friis Bach, the recently appointed head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), is hoping to make some radical changes in the public perception of his organization. This means overhauling its information outreach and collaborating more effectively with partners to show that the United Nations make a difference.

One of the United Nations’ worst habits since its founding at the end of World War II has been its tendency to label its organizations, programmes, treaties and projects with tedious names or even more unwieldy acronyms.

Did the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) really help itself by appropriating a title producing an acronym that was almost identical to the one belonging to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)? Both human rights and refugees are hard enough to communicate, but most people either have no idea what these epithets mean, or they constantly confuse one with the other. The same goes for all those other awkward UN designations: UNFPA, UNODC, UNISDR, UNIDO, HLPF… At least ‘UN Women’, a relatively new initiative, puts the message across clearly and without mincing words or letters.

Combined with the pervasive inability of so many UN agencies to adopt more imaginative and effective information initiatives, this is one reason why so much of the public-at-large is not aware what the UN does. “It’s very much a problem for the UN which changes slowly,” admits Christian Bach, a youthful 48-year-old Dane who was appointed last July as the new Executive Secretary of UNECE.

Having never worked in the UN system before, Bach considers his outside perspective to be an advantage. “We have failed to create visibility around the UN, particularly here in Geneva, which I see as the ‘Silicon Valley’ of international cooperation,” he says. “There is enormous strength in having so many crucial organizations in one place, but we should be promoting and developing it better as a global hub.”

Bach further stresses the need to shift towards non-state actors, which is why he believes the UN should seek broader partnerships with civil society, the private sector, media and academia in order to drive the agenda forward. “Some say that the UN is only as good as the sum of its Member States, meaning that we are Member States driven. In one way, this is a big asset for us. But we now have to translate this into action and to benefit the citizens,” he adds. “The UN needs to re-invent itself and we should have the ambition to be more than the sum of our Member States. The UN should drive the world in the right direction.”

1 Editor of LeNews, Edward Girardet is a foreign correspondent and author. His latest book is: Killing the Cranes – A Reporter’s Journey Through Three Decades of War in Afghanistan.2 Former TIME magazine correspondent William Dowell is an editor of The Essential Edge and The Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan.

Unlike most people from Europe who are multi-lingual because they are used to driving for one hour and then finding themselves in another country that speaks another language, I am from a country where you can drive for several days and you are still speaking the same language.

When I arrived in Geneva in 2003 for a short-term contract with WHO, I did not even try to learn French because I thought I would shortly be home. But my contract was extended once and then twice, though each time I thought I would soon be back to my English-speaking environment.

After four years in Geneva, I received a fixed-term contract, so I finally signed up for the free group French lessons at WHO. However, with my duty travel schedule, I was unable to fully participate and for years I skipped the final written exams for fear of failure. So, I have survived 11 years in French-speaking Geneva by going only to English-speaking doctors, dentists, hairdressers, gym trainers, Zumba instructors, vets, etc. My social life was limited to only those events or activities where someone could translate for me and when it came to official documentation I leaned heavily on kind co-workers for their assistance.

However, I knew deep inside that by not speaking French I was missing opportunities that Geneva and the surrounding areas could truly offer. But my work schedule was intense and a French course would have added to the stress. Therefore, I accepted the fact that I was living in a city whose language I could not speak. But this all changed last summer, when I started the process of buying my first home in Europe.

All the voluminous, legal documents were in French, and I was supposed to read, understand and sign every single contract. As a licensed attorney, signing documents I did not understand made me very anxious and fearful. My legal training requires me to read and understand the fine print and all the legal ramifications of a contract. This was a major commitment and despite assistance from friends, I started to regret my complacency for the language.

Purchasing that French apartment, coupled with nagging fear, was the experience that catapulted me out of my English cocoon. What I needed was a place where I had no option but to speak French. And this meant an immersion class to drill French into my language-challenged neurons. A friend put me in touch with a school in Millefeuille, Provence in a château not far from Avignon. The cost was high, but I was desperate. I applied for study leave, which was approved and I set off, determined to succeed this time.

For two weeks, from the moment I arrived to the time I left, I heard and spoke only French. If I needed anything, I had to use French. It helped that none of the teachers and students knew me, so I was not afraid to make mistakes. My grammar-conscious psyche stopped resisting. I started stringing together words in my attempt to communicate and to my surprise I discovered I had an extensive French vocabulary, maybe absorbed by osmosis over the years.

And finally I had the gumption to speak French, regardless of the grammatical incorrectness, which was a breakthrough for me. As I drove back to Geneva, the frontier guards stopped me to ask a few questions. Effortlessly, I smiled and responded to their enquiries in fluent French! That blew me away!